Alwaght- Severe malnutrition could claim lives of at least 400,000 Yemeni children under 5 this year, four UN agencies warned on Friday as Saudi Arabia and its allies are waging a brutal war against the already impoverished Arab state. The six-year-old aggression led by Saudi regime has rendered 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid
In a report published on Friday, the agencies projected a 22% increase in severe acute malnutrition among children under 5 in Yemen, compared to 2020, Reuters reported.
Severe acute malnutrition means there is a risk of death from lack of food. Aden, Hodeidah, Taiz and Sanaa are among the worst-hit areas, the report said.
“These numbers are yet another cry for help from Yemen where each malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive,” World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley said in a joint statement with the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Another 2.3 million under 5s are expected to suffer acute malnutrition in 2021. Acute malnutrition among young children and mothers in Yemen has increased with each year of the conflict, they said, driven by the high rates of disease and rising rates of food insecurity.
Around 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women are projected to be acutely malnourished this year.
Saudi Arabia launched its war on Yemen war in 2015 in a bid to reinstall Yemen’s former pro-Riyadh government. The military campaign has turned the poor Arab country into the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, with tens of thousands of civilians killed and many more suffering the calamities of the war.
Along with Saudi-led aggression, economic decline and the Coronavirus pandemic, a shortfall of donations last year is also contributing to the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Nutrition and other services that keep millions from starvation and disease are gradually closing across Yemen amid the acute funding shortage.
The agencies said they had only received $1.9 billion of the $3.4 billion required for the country’s humanitarian response. Programmes have started to close and scale down.
